


These endless nights

by Qpenguin98



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Amnesty, Character Study, Crying, Death, Families of Choice, Family, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Post Episode 33, TAZ Amnesty, it's mike you know the pine guard member who died that we forgot about?, parental relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-14
Updated: 2019-08-14
Packaged: 2020-08-23 22:16:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,401
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20241826
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Qpenguin98/pseuds/Qpenguin98
Summary: Amnesty Lodge has been Barclay’s home for a little over thirty years at this point, and it shocks him sometimes. He’d never really meant to stay there. It was an accident.





	These endless nights

Amnesty Lodge has been Barclay’s home for a little over thirty years at this point, and it shocks him sometimes. He’d never really meant to stay there. It was an accident, finding the springs. It’s not all that uncommon, there’s little pockets of magic all over earth that people don’t bother seeing, but it was nice to know it was there. What wasn’t nice was immediately getting bombarded by an abomination, and with it Mama.

She was a lot younger then. Mid twenties, but she held that same commanding presence, same shotgun too. Bushy hair held back with a straining hair tie, boots covered in mud, and chewing an incredibly pungent piece of cinnamon gum, she leaned on her shotgun after shooting the thing and stared at him.

“You’re new around here,” she says, accent thick. Her eyes narrow. “Any reason you’re skulking about our woods? We got, uh, a rabid deer epidemic happenin’.”

The thing lying a few feet to his right was in no way a deer, and he raises his eyebrows at her. “Pretty messed up deer.”

“Oh yeah. They’re just gettin’ all sorts of fucked up out here with no one controllin’ anything.” It’s an invitation to leave, as clearly she’s taking care of it, but he doesn’t. This is familiar somehow. There’s this energy around this part of the woods, and the weird fucked up thing laying near him just confirms it.

“You had any weird people come by recently?” he asks her. Because maybe, somehow, she’d met others, that they’d found this spring and holed up near it for survival.

“Just you,” she says sharply. It’s too quick to be true. “Unless you count rabid deer as weird people.”

There’s a tug in his chest then, and he turns his head, staring off into the distance. He leaves her to follow it, mumbling something about leaving, and she’d seen where he was headed and followed him.

“Town’s that way,” she calls after him, keeping up easily. He doesn’t acknowledge her, walking until he sees it, painfully familiar, sitting right in the middle of their forest.

“You have a gate?” He asks, eyes wide.

“You know what that thing is?” she asks him, curious.

“Y—,” he starts, and then stops, turning to her, narrowing his eyes. “Do you?”

“It’s all real dependent on if you do. Clearly you can see it, but I ain’t so sure you really _know_ what’s up with it.”

Barclay considers her for a minute, taking in her clearly experienced monster hunter look, the way she’d tried to shoo him away from her home like she was protecting something, and decides ‘fuck it.’

He takes off his bracelet and watches her eyebrows go up right alongside her eyes as she takes him in.

“I guess you know all about that gate then, huh?”

“Just a bit,” he says.

“Welp, c’mon then,” she says, turning on her heel and walking back through the woods. He scrambles with his bracelet before following her, a good two feet shorter, and jogs a bit to catch up.

“You’re not surprised.”

“I mean, I’ve never met fuckin’ _Bigfoot _before, but I’ve seen my fair share of y’all around here. Somethin’ about a spring? Either way I got ‘em shacked up at my mama’s old hotel. Lotsa rooms for lotsa folks. With you comin’ through I can only assume there’ll be more. We got space if you wanna stay.”

“I’m Barclay,” he tells her instead of a yes. “What’s your name?”

“You can just call me Mama,” she says, grinning at him.

And thus began his stay in Kepler. He meant to stay for a week or two at most, but then he’d gotten invested in the hunts, the abominations, the people she’d been protect, both human and sylph, and found he couldn’t really bring himself to. Besides, Mama couldn’t cook for shit and he got tired of eating burnt meat with overdone rice and mushy beans all the time.

Mama co-opted Thacker, the weird nature trail guide, the next year, and they had a pretty decent team. Thacker knew the woods real well, Mama was real good at fighting, and Barclay was just plain big enough to handle his own.

“Why don’t you just go by Arlo?” he asks one night, writing down information about their newest abomination.

“’Cause it’s a dumb fuckin’ name, that’s why,” Mama calls from her chair in the corner.

“You know what’s a dumb fuckin’ name? Mama,” Thacker shoots back at her. “There ain’t nothin’ wrong with Madeline.”

“It commands respect,” she says, narrowing her eyes. “Just like your last name there. You get less respect gettin’ called ‘Arlo’ by your students.”

Thacker turns back to Barclay and holds out a hand as his answer. He just sighs.

“You got a last name?” Mama asks, suddenly interested. “You’ve never said.”

“Uh, no. They’re not really that big of a thing on Sylvain. Mostly a status marker, if you got one.”

“Status marker?”

“You’re usually higher up in the ranks of things than I was if you’ve got a last name. In the court. Course it’s not always like that. There’s some regular people with last names and people in the court that have nothing but their first names. People make them up sometimes to try and make themselves seem higher in the ranks than they actually are. Never goes well.”

“Bigfoot,” Thacker says suddenly, and Barclay wrinkles his nose.

“Yeah, I am. We’ve covered this—”

“No, Barclay Bigfoot. It’s your status and it’s true! Perfect last name.”

“That’s the most utilitarian dumb fuck bull shit I’ve heard come out of your mouth, Thacker.”

“Thought that was Gorp.”

“Second most,” she amends. “But there is no way we can make Barclay’s last name Bigfoot if we’re keeping it a secret, I know you know that.”

“I do not want my last name to be Bigfoot,” Barclay pitches in. “Just to throw my opinion in there.”

“Eh, no one gets to choose their last name,” Thacker tells him and Barclay makes a sour face at him.

“It’s not Bigfoot,” Mama assures him. “Once we get you all falsified it’ll have to be something, but it for sure is not gonna be Bigfoot.”

They choose something unassuming because of the obscurity of his first name, and he ends up with Barclay Griffin. He doesn’t hate it, but he’s glad it’s only for their fake legal documents. No one’s gonna call him ‘Griffin,’ like they do with Thacker, and he’s glad.

The Pine Guard, as they’ve taken to calling themselves, gains one more member a few years later. A man named Mike who’d moved out of Kepler after high school and then came back because big city living wasn’t going too well for him. Mama remembers him from school, and Thacker has absolutely no recollection of him, but that’s not exactly a surprise.

He’s much better at the science aspect than him or Mama, so Thacker finally has someone to bounce ideas off of for the way it manipulates nature. He’s twenty seven, a year or so younger than Mama, and about five years younger than Thacker.

He’s a good addition, he’s funny, and Mama teaches him how to shoot because he’s not real good at hand to hand, but he wants to help and he’s good at it.

They get him for nine years before an abomination really gets him, wrapping one of its too many arms around his leg and dragging him kicking and screaming through the underbrush. Barclay goes tearing after them, axe in hand, but he gets there too late. His neck is bent at an odd angle and there’s a mouth locked around his torso, blood mingling with too many teeth. Mama catches up with him, followed a little slower by Thacker, and when she sees it she shoots, again and again until it’s blown off his body and into one of the nearby trees, where Barclay finally throw the axe in his hand. It connects and the thing goes blessedly still, disappearing into light after a moment.

“Aw shit,” Mama says, clutching her gun a little tighter. “Jesus, that weren’t necessary.”

His eyes are open, but he’s not breathing. His blood’s pouring out of his stomach and his body doesn’t so much as twitch.

“Least it was quick,” Thacker says quietly. And it was. Broken necks never take long. Couple that with the teeth in his torso? Not long at all.

“What do we do?”

“Bear attack,” Mama says grimly, staring Mike’s body. “We know what we do. It was a bear attack.”

Her voice is flat, and her voice is never flat. Barclay looks at her, looks at the way she’s holding herself, the hard set of her mouth, the way her eyes don’t leave him. He wears his hurts on his sleeve, but she never has. She’s always kept anything remotely sad inside herself until it bursts, and it never bursts in front of the residents of the Lodge. That or she holes herself up in her art for days on end that no one sees her. He wonders which one this will be.

They take anything to connect him to the Pine Guard, leave him where he lies, and call in an anonymous tip of a disturbance in the woods. He’s found within the hour, and the town goes wild with the news, everyone flocking the mortuary to try and understand what happened.

Barclay, Mama, and Thacker don’t go down.

Their debrief is stony faced, Thacker recording the hunt on their new computer without question, and they’re glad to be out of it once they’re done.

He gives it a few days, cooking out his feelings, visiting the funeral, letting himself feel his feelings, before he approaches Mama. She’s allowed her space just like he’s allowed his, but he’d rather not have her blow up about it later.

“Hey,” he says, knocking on her office door frame. “I brought tea?”

She nods at him, not looking up from her sketchbook. She’s probably planning her next piece, something to withdraw from people with under the guise of productivity.

“You doing okay?”

“Fine, Barclay,” she says, taking the mug of tea from him and sipping on it.

“It just,” he says, sitting in one of the extra chairs she has in here, “it just sucks.”

“That is certainly one word for it.”

“It’s nobody’s fault, you know.”

“I’m well aware of whose fault it is,” she says, artfully avoiding disagreeing with him. It’s not like he doesn’t catch it.

“You’re included in that too, you know.”

She stops, pencil stilling. The air is thick as she stands, closing the door to her office.

“You tryin’ to make me grieve the way you do?” She asks him, voice cold, eyes steely. “Cause I don’t grieve like you do. I handle my things the way I handle them.”

He’s taken aback a bit. That wasn’t his intention at all.

“I don’t want you to feel like it was your fault. I know you, Mama. I know how you handle stuff like this, letting it fester until it explodes. I don’t wanna watch you do that over this. It’s okay to feel things.”

“I feel plenty,” she spits out. “I feel e fuckin’ nough for what I need to do, and me gettin’ messed up about Mike being dead ain’t gonna do shit for anybody. I know you got this hyper empathy thing where you feel for everyone but I’m not interested. You’re my friend and I care about you and that’s the only reason why I’m even entertaining this conversation at all.”

“It really doesn’t feel like you are,” he says, lips down turned. This is not how he wanted this to go. If he’s being honest with himself he’d feeling frustrated, but he’s trying hard not to let that show through. “You’re telling me all the reasons you won’t have this conversation over our dead friend with me, so it really doesn’t feel like a two way street.”

“Mike is dead and you want to take this time to talk about how I cope? How about you Barclay, how do you cope?”

He’s quiet for a second, a little shocked. She sounds so bitter, but it’s a real question so he needs to answer her. “I… I let myself feel it. And I know you feel things, I’m not saying that. I’m saying I let them be the forefront of my mind for as long as they need to be there and then I work through them, rationalize it. I feel guilty but I know it’s not my fault. I want him back but that’s not happening. I think about how he looked so I cook something to take the image out of my mind. I work through it, Mama. I don’t let it sit and ignore it for as long as I can.”

She looks livid, but he doesn’t think it’s all directed at him, and that makes this better. “I can’t do that.”

“What? I know you’re not used to it but I could help—”

“I can’t do that!” She yells, and he’s glad that the walls are made of thick wood. She’d be mortified if someone heard her like this.

And that incidentally is the thought that makes it click.

“It doesn’t make you weak,” he says carefully, and watches her hands fist at her sides. “It doesn’t. You working through things like that doesn’t make you weak, Mama.”

“Doesn’t matter whether you think that or not,” she says, and there’s an edge to her voice that he’s never heard. “Doesn’t make you right.”

“You know I am. It’s okay to grieve. You can feel sad about it. It doesn’t just have to turn right around into anger or you making a new piece so you don’t have to talk to anyone for a week while you shove it all down. You can feel it, it’s good to, it’s healthy. Madeline—”

“Don’t you fuckin’ call me that,” she says, and her jaw shakes, chin dimpling with the force of her keeping anything from coming to the surface. “It’s Mama or not at all and you _know that_.”

Her eyes are shining and he stands, coming closer and reaching his arms out tentatively. She doesn’t bat him away, just stares at him with hard eyes. He grabs her shoulders gently and stares at her. They’re matched in height almost, Mama just two inches shorter than him, so it’s easy for him to see all the emotions that pass through her face.

“It’s not your fault.” His voice is firm. “Do you hear me? It is not your fault.”

“You don’t know that,” she says, choked. “I could’ve— I was so close—”

“He was in the wrong place at the wrong time,” he says, his own eyes watering. “It could’ve been any of us. It could’ve been you. Would you blame him if it were you?”

“_No_,” she says harshly, and the dam breaks. Her breath catches and her eyes squint shut, letting out all the water trapped in them. He pulls her into a hug and presses his lips thin because he doesn’t want to cry also. He’s spent the last few days crying about it and he’s not keen on more.

She’s loud and gasping and he presses a hand to the back of her head to hold her steady.

“I was right there,” she warbles out, and he shushes her. She doesn’t try to justify it again.

They stay like that until she wears herself out, slumping against him and taking in shaky breaths to steady herself.

“That fuckin’ sucked,” she says. “I don’t like your way of grieving.”

It startles a laugh out of him, and he snickers into her hair and she lets out a couple weak laughs, wrapping an arm around him and squeezing him back.

“C’mon,” he says, pulling back and holding her loosely on her arms. “Let’s go cook something.”

“You hate when I cook, say I burn everything,” she says, wiping at her face.

“You do, this is a once in a lifetime offer,” he says, smiling. She looks at him and sighs, smiling too.

“Fine, but I choose what we make.”

It’s another nine years before they get their next big shock. People have been coming through the gate occasionally, confused an alone and eventually ending up at the Lodge, but there’s never been any kids.

They get a very rare call from Indrid in February, telling them to go check out the archway, and Mama grumbles her way into her coat and boots, grabbing her shotgun just for good measure.

“I’m just saying, I’m sure they’d be fine for one night. Indrid’s never called for anyone before now, dunno why this person’s so special.”

He catches sight of them first, a gangly vampiric looking sylph which, at second glance proves to be a kid. He stops Mama before they can get closer.

“What the hell are you doin’?” she whispers out, and he points.

“Mama, that’s a kid,” he says, stomach sick, and she sucks in a breath.

“Shit. No wonder he called.” Mama runs a hand through her hair and sets her mouth. “Alright, we got this. Lemme go first.”

She walks out of the brush, stepping on a twig, and the kid turns, eyes wide and terrified. They cling at their arms for warmth.

“Hey hun. I know you’re probably scared and confused and wondering where the hell you just ended up but don’t worry. It’s okay.”

Barclay follows her out and the kid stares at him, taking a step back. He raises his hands and Mama hisses at him, “D’you think showin’ her your sylph form would help?”

That’s an idea. “I’m from Sylvain too,” he says, and they keep staring at him, a little less poised to run. He snaps his bracelet off and grows a couple feet. They watch him go up and then immediately start crying.

“Okay,” Mama says. “It’s okay. We got a place you can stay that has other outcasts too, alright? Only if you want to go though.”

Barclay puts the bracelet back on and shucks off his jacket, handing off to Mama to give to the kid. She holds it out and they take it with shaky hands, wrapping the too big piece of clothing around themself and blinking a couple times.

“Okay,” they say quietly. “I’m, uh, I’m Dani.”

“I’m Mama.”

“I’m Barclay,” he says gently.

“I’m a girl,” she says a little firmer than her name, and Mama nods.

“Alright, Dani, so am I. Not Barclay though. He’s one whole guy.”

That gets a tiny smile out of her, and with that they lead her back to the Lodge. They’re going to have to get her a disguise soon, but for now it’s nighttime and they’re taking her back indoors anyway.

The Lodge goes deathly silent when they come back in with a sylph kid in tow, and Moira’s the first one to take her disguise off, allowing Dani to relax more. Barclay heats her up some stew and a hot chocolate and she scarfs it down pretty quickly.

“How’re you still stable?” she asks him through a mouthful of meat and potato. She’s still wearing his jacket, sleeves rolled and shoved up to her elbows as she eats.

“We’ve got a hot spring that acts pretty much exactly like the crystal does, fills you up with energy. Hasn’t gone bad yet, and I don’t expect it to anytime soon.”

She nods at this, going back to her food, and the whispers have started up around the Lodge, wondering why a kid is here, how the court could justify exiling a child, where the rest of her family is. He tries not to listen to any of them, just sits with her while Mama sets up a room and finds some clothes.

“How old are you Dani?”

“Thirteen,” she says, tipping her mug back to get all the chocolate dregs.

“What do you like to do?”

“Uh,” she says, thinking. Her hands come together, wringing under the table as her brows knit together. “I uh, I like gardening, and reading, and drawing, and baking with mom.”

That last part hushes her up after she says it, staring down hard at the grain of the table, digging a fingernail into the meat of her hand. He scrambles for something to work with out of that that won’t make her sadder.

“Well, I know a lot of the people here like gardening. We have one out in the back, when it’s warmer out. I cook here for the Lodge, so if you ever want to help out or have fun cooking something just let me know and I’ll make a space for you. Mama’s real big into art. She makes wood carvings and sketches some stuff out sometimes. I bet she’d be able to get you fitted out with some pencils and a sketchpad if you wanted.”

“Okay,” she says, and he can tell it’s more for his benefit than hers. This hurt isn’t going to go away for a while, maybe never, but he’s not expecting her to be all peachy keen about being removed from her family forever.

She’s flagging and it seems like Mama has perfect timing as she comes back down with a bundle of clothes in her arms.

“Here,” she says, holding them out. “They’re probably a little big, but they should work until we can get you some new ones. I’ve got a room all set up upstairs whenever you’re ready for bed.”

“Okay,” Dani says quietly. She takes the clothes and Barclay recognizes one of his old flannels that had shrunk in the wash in the mix. “Thank you.”

“Of course,” Mama says.

“I think I’m ready for bed now,” she says after a minute. She goes to grab her bowl and mug but Barclay gets it for her.

“I’ve got that, you worry about going to sleep.”

She nods and follows Mama upstairs. He watches her go and then takes the dishes to the sink, washing them out and setting them down to dry. Mama comes down about ten minutes later, thumb rubbing over her knuckles. She sits at the kitchen table and puts her head in her hands.

“What the fuck is happening over there,” she asks lowly. Most of the other residents have trickled out and into their rooms now that everything’s settled.

“It means resources are running our way faster than they should,” he says, sitting down next to her. “I don’t like it. How many more kids are gonna come through that gate?”

“Guess we gotta make the Lodge kid friendly,” she grumbles out, not looking up.

“I don’t know that it isn’t. Plus she’s thirteen. I’m sure she’s heard a curse word before.”

She mumbles something that he can’t make out and he sits back, tipping his head and exhaling slowly. “This sucks.”

“You’re tellin’ me.”

Dani ends up fitting in nicely. It takes her a while to really speak before she’s spoken to, not wanting to take up space, but she’s a good kid and a good help in the kitchen when he asks her. She wears the flannel pretty much constantly even after getting clothes of her own, and Barclay never asks for it back. It’s not like it fits him anymore.

They help her do up her room, take her to Indrid so she can get her disguise, get her some gardening tools for when the spring rolls around. She doesn’t really ask for anything, but they’re pretty good at inferring what she wants.

“Dani,” Barclay starts when it’s just the two of them in the kitchen. She looks up from the dough she’s kneading for biscuits. It’s been about two months since she’s settled in. “Why are you here?”

“Uh, you said I could help with the biscuits?”

“No, not… not that. Why are you here on earth?”

She looks back down at the dough and shoves her hands in it, rolling it around the counter.

“You don’t have to answer—”

“It’s bad,” she says. “It’s bad over there. At least I think it is. Things have always been pretty scarce but it’s just gotten worse. And I kept asking questions, to my parents, my teachers, the officials we would meet on fieldtrips.”

Dani squeezes the dough tightly between her fingers and doesn’t look at him. “There were rumors, you know? That the Exiled were still alive and thriving. I never knew if it was true or not, but someone had to and I wanted to know why we couldn’t just go over there if they were being okay.”

She sniffs a couple times and rubs at her eyes and Barclay’s ready to tell her she can stop but she just keeps going. “If there were resources, why couldn’t we use them? Sylvain’s home and I love it but why couldn’t we at least send people over there to get full up? I guess it spread around that I was asking all that and the court didn’t like it so I… I-I’m here now.”

Barclay puts his hand on her shoulder and she turns to look at him, eyes red and shiny. “Sylvain hasn’t been okay for a long time, longer than I’ve been here and I’ve been here a long time. Exile was still a pretty rare thing, but they’ve really picked up the speed in doing it. I need you to know that it’s okay to ask questions like that, because they really could’ve helped, sending people over and bringing them back is a good solution, but they’re set in the idea that they can fix it all themselves. And maybe they can, I really hope so. But you’re here now and that has to hurt, I know that it hurts. I may have been here a long time, but it’s still there, the fact that I have seen my family in years and years. It’s okay to not be okay about it, Dani.”

She scrunches her face up and covers her eyes with the backs of her hands so she doesn’t get dough in them, and Barclay pulls her into a hug. She cries for a while, for her family and for herself, and Barclay holds her through the whole thing.

“Why’d you get Exiled?” She asks him once she’s calmed down, still wrapped up in his arms.

“I also asked too many questions,” he says. “I didn’t like the Interpreter we had at the time, thought he wasn’t actually doing things for Sylvain’s best interest, and so I talked about it, asked questions of officials I would see. Accidentally started up a group of people with the same idea, and they needed a scapegoat to kill the idea. I didn’t want anyone else getting thrown out because of me, so I took all the blame.”

She hums in response, pulling back and wiping at her face with her arm. “Can we keep making biscuits?”

“Yeah,” he says, smiling. “We can do that.”

They turn out light and fluffy and buttery and Dani smears jam all over hers. Things feel a little bit better, Barclay thinks, with both of them knowing why the other is here. It’s a topic that never really gets talked about because of how uncomfortable it is, but it’s important to him that Dani feels safe and at home here, so he’s not really upset about talking about it. And it has been a long time. Most of the hurt’s been covered up by that.

They go two years before another kid shows up. Dani’s out in the garden, what’s really become _her _garden, fifteen and a lot happier than she was when she first showed up. Barclay’s writing out strategies for the next hunt, the full moon coming up in a few weeks. What he doesn’t know is that they’re three months out from losing Thacker for the next six years.

The phone rings and he gets up to grab it.

“Amnesty Lodge—”

“_Barclay speaking_ yes yes I know,” Indrid interrupts him, and Barclay sighs. This can’t mean anything good. He never calls to have a pleasant conversation. “In three minutes someone new will be coming through the gate. It seems like he’s fairly young. You should— yes you should bring Dani with you. Just to soften the blow of things. I’m in town so whenever you’d like to get him set up with a disguise I’m available.”

Barclay presses his fingers to the bridge of his nose. Good, another kid. They haven’t stopped that then. “Anything else I need to know?”

“Mm, nothing important. There’s about a seventy five percent chance of you hitting your head on a branch, so look out for that, but nothing else pressing.”

“Thanks,” he says and Indrid bids him goodbye and hangs up. “Mama!”

“What!” She yells from her office.

“New recruit,” he yells back. “We’re bringing Dani!”

“Bringing me where?” She asks him, popping up in the window.

“Up to the Archway,” he says. “Indrid just called. Says there’s a new Sylph and he’s pretty young so you’d probably help soften the blow of it all.”

She nods and pulls off her gloves, shoving them in her back pocket, retucking her flannel in her pants. “Okay.”

“Why’s it always not good news when he calls,” Mama grumbles as she comes down the stairs. “Can’t he ever call with ‘your insurance policy is about to get better and you pay less money?’”

“You think that guy’s a positive thinker?” Barclay asks her. “I don’t know that he’s had good news ever in his life.”

“Well I’ll finally have someone my own age, so it’s not all bad,” Dani says, meeting them outside. “Does this mean I’m on the greeting committee now?”

“Special occasion,” Mama says, leading the way up to the Archway. “Still don’t want you up there with new people all the time. Dunno who’s coming through.”

“I’m not a baby. I can take care of myself.”

“We know,” Barclay says. “Just makes us a little less on edge knowing you’re safe back at the Lodge.”

“Fine,” she mutters, crossing her arms. She fiddles with her ring with her thumb, twisting it around in anticipation of taking it off.

They make it up a few minutes after the new Sylph was supposed to make it through, and they find him sitting on a log with his head on his knees.

“Hello,” Mama calls, and he snaps his head up, look at the three of them. He’s got the head of a seal, black eyes staring. “You don’t gotta be afraid, we know all about Sylvain and the Sylphs and all that.”

Dani slips off her ring and waves at him, all sharp ears and teeth and glowing orange eyes. The rigidness of the kid’s spine goes down a little bit. “I’m Dani,’ she tells him.

“Jake Coolice,” he says, shifting on the log. “Are, uh, you two Sylphs?”

Barclay takes off his bracelet while Mama shakes her head. “I’m just a human, but that’s Barclay, out resident Welcome Sylph.”

He wonders how a kid with a last name, presumably higher up in the ranks of things, got kicked out at this age, and wonders if they’re trying to show that all inhabitants are equal.

“Cool,” Jake says, pulling at his jacket. “Cool! I had no idea all those rumors about Exiled sylphs were true. Kinda thought I was way outa luck coming through here, but it’s real good to know I’m not gonna go off the walls in a few days.

He doesn’t seem all that torn up about it, and Barclay wonders how much of that is a façade. How long it’ll take him to actually show that it’s affecting him.

“We live down at Amnesty Lodge, with a bunch of other sylphs if you’d like to come down and check it out. There’s plenty of space and beds for everyone,” he tells him.

“Yeah,” Jake says, standing up and stumbling on a root before righting himself. “Gotta ask though, where’d you get the human disguises?”

“Old court seer lives in the area, and he makes them for us,” Barclay says. Jake looks a little tenser. “I’ll admit, he can be a lot sometimes with all his future vision and eggnog everywhere, but he’s good at what he does and it won’t take to long if you want to do that. You can choose when.”

“Might as well do it now.” He looks a little resigned. “Do I need to worry about being seen?”

“Eh, I know the back way to his trailer, so you don’t gotta worry about it.”

They head off towards Indrid’s trailer and Dani falls back to talk with him.

“How old are you?” She asks, slipping her ring back on.

“Fifteen.”

“Me too! I’m turning sixteen in a few months, though. The time system here is really similar to Sylvain’s so it makes it easier to keep track of things. What do you like to do?”

“I like snowboarding,” Jake says, looking around the hilly forest. “Does it snow here?”

“A lot,” Dani says, wrinkling her face. “I don’t really like snow, but it does snow a lot. I know people go skiing and boarding in the winter. I think there’s a group of kids in town that do that stuff all the time.”

Jake sounds excited when he says “Cool.”

“I’ve been here for two years,” Dani says. “The Lodge is really nice. Barclay does all the food, but I help him sometime. Do you like cooking?”

“I, uh, I’m really bad at it,” he says. “Like, abysmally bad at it. Pretty sure I undercook everything I try ‘cause I get so impatient.”

“Mama burns everything she touches,” Dani says quietly.

“That’s a lie,” Mama says ahead of them. Barclay smiles. “I burn most things, not all of them. Ask Barclay.”

“When I first moved into the Lodge we had overcooked meat and beans and mushy rice like every night until I took over. She overcooks everything.”

Mama smacks him on the arm and he laughs. “Traitor.”

“Can’t greet the kid with lies, Mama,” he says.

They make it to the trailer with no incident, and Indrid greets them at the door, bundled up in a sweater even though it’s the middle of May.

“Hello!” He says, leading them inside “I see you made it here fine, and you avoided that tree branch, good for you Barclay.”

“Thanks Indrid.”

“Now, Jake,” Jake stands up a little straighter, arms at his sides. “We need to get you a disguise so you can go about your life. Let me grab my box.”

He turns and rummages through a pile of stuff that Barclay has absolutely no idea of what it all is, and pulls out a wooden box. He pops it open, presenting the contents to Jake.

“Take your pick!”

He reaches a tentative hand into the box, looking at a couple different items before settling on a wrist cuff.

“Alright, give me just a minute to get that disguise together for you,” Indrid says, closing the box and holding the cuff in his hands. He presses them together and mumbles something and then hands it back out. “Try it on.”

Jake tries it on, and he stays the same height but his features get a lot more human. Blond hair, blue eyes. He looks down at himself and blinks.

“Alright,” he says. “Cool, cool, living the dream.”

They all make to leave after that, but Indrid pulls a very nervous looking Jake aside, who grows progressively less nervous looking as the conversation goes on.

“What was that about?” Dani asks him as they walk back to the Lodge.

“Just… just you know! Welcome to earth kind of thing. Nothing important,” and everyone can tell he’s lying, but no one calls him on it. It’s been a day for him, and they don’t want to push.

He settles in okay too, and Mama takes him clothes shopping the next day. He comes back with the gaudiest, most awful clothes from the eighties that Barclay can remember. If he’s being honest, they hurt his eyes a little bit, but they make him happy so it’s fine.

He joins this stunt group not long after, mountain bikers and snowboarders that take the hills in Kepler by storm, and he seems happy about it, happy to be with people he can share his hobbies with.

Him and Dani get along way too well, shooting jokes off each other and helping one another do the stuff they like to do. Barclay’s more than relieved that the only two teenagers in his care like each other. He doesn’t know what he’d do if they didn’t.

About a year and a half passes, Thacker goes into the wilds and doesn’t come back, and it’s just him and Mama on Pine Guard duty again. It’s a little lonely, but that’s not his focus. His focus is the Lodge and keeping everyone safe.

Dani’s out with Mama picking up wood and art supplies and Barclay’s going through stuff in the office and Jake knocks on the frame.

“What’s up?” He asks, not really moving from the papers he’s sorting through.

“I…” Jake starts, twisting his wrist cuff. Barclay still hasn’t gotten it out of him why he’s on Earth yet. “I wanted to ask some advice.”

“Sure,” he says, sitting. “This an open door conversation or a closed one?”

Jake hems and haws with himself before he shuts the door and leans against it. “Closed.”

“Alright,” Barclay says. That means it’s more serious, which is something Jake doesn’t do often. “Shoot.”

“Have you ever been in love?”

He doesn’t know what he was expecting, but it wasn’t that. He guesses it makes sense, Jake’s sixteen and that’s usually when people fall in love for the first time. With how close quarters Kepler is, its probably someone in the stunt team.

“Yes,” he says carefully. “Why?”

“Just wondering,” he mumbles, not looking at him. ‘What was it like?”

“It was nice while it happened.” It’s been a long time since Barclay was in a relationship, but he can dredge up old memories if he has to. “It was tough sometimes, but it was good. Kind of felt like being in a hot air balloon all the time at the beginning, but then it just felt comfortable after that.”

Jake nods, arms crossed. He’s staring very intensely at the floor. How interesting must the wood be that he doesn’t look anywhere else.

“I think I like Hollis,” Jake says very suddenly in a mouthful of sounds that it takes him a second to process. Barclay’s met Hollis, he’s brought them and a few other Kepler Stunters to the Lodge before to hang out and meet the people he considers a pseudo family. They seem like a good kid.

“Alright,” Barclay says. “Is there a problem with it?”

“I don’t know,” he groans, slumping and tipping his head up. “I don’t know how to deal with that! I’m an actual real life alien and they don’t know that! How am I supposed to be in a relationship with them if they don’t know that? Plus I don’t even know if they like me. How am I supposed to deal with that! They’re so— they’re so _cool_ and I, admittedly, am also probably pretty cool, but Barclay they’re _so cool_ and I can’t even do anything about it.”

Barclay thinks he’s probably putting them up on a pedestal a little bit, but that’s also probably the point. He steeples his hands together and thinks.

“I know next to nothing about current earth romance,” he starts with, which is a true and important thing to preface. “But honestly I think you could go for it and be fine. You’re young, one love confession isn’t gonna ruin your entire friendship if they say no. And you know them better than I do. Do you think they’d say no?”

“I don’t know,” he says, looking at him finally. “Maybe? Probably not? Sometimes it feels like they like me too but I can’t tell if that’s just how they are and I’m reading into it too much or if they really mean it. I don’t wanna mess it up.”

“You’re not going to mess it up. If they say no you’re in the same position you’re in now, and you don’t push it even a little bit. Things will work out fine. But if they say yes, you’re probably both better for it. Just ask, Jake. Go see a movie, take a walk in the woods, just not for a little while because of the abomination. Go snowboarding together, push each other around in the snow. Have _fun_. They’re one of your best friends. It’ll work out regardless.”

“Yeah,” he says, biting at his cheek. “You’re probably right. It’s just… ugh.”

“Yeah. It sucks to have to do it. It’d be easier if someone could just read minds in the situation and have it all be over with, but you gotta do the hard work if you want it to work out, okay?”

“Okay,” he mumbles, uncrossing his arms. “Thanks Barclay.”

“No problem,” he tells him as he leaves. Right, back to sorting.

Things work out surprisingly well for Jake and Hollis. Hollis, predictably, says yes to dating Jake, which he’s ecstatic about. Dani rolls his eyes every time he brings them up around her.

“We _know_ you’ve got a partner. There’s no need to rub it in our faces all the time.”

“Sorry there’s no cute girls for you to also date,” Jake says, and he doesn’t sound sorry at all. “When that happens you can tell me all about it all the time, but for now I’m gonna gush as much as I want.”

“Ugh,” she says, turning back to her sketchbook. “Tell them I said hi or whatever.”

“Will do!” he says, grabbing his board and his jacket and heading out the door.

The only problem with them dating is that Hollis is around the Lodge more often and less planned, so everyone’s a lot warier with their disguises than they’re used to. Even Barclay’s getting a little antsy about it. He’s not so used to being cooped up in his human form for so long.

He accidentally walks in on them making out one time and vows to never not knock again. Ugh. That’s his kind of kid. He does not want to see that. Mama gives him a consoling arm pat as he yells into his hands about it.

Things are good until the sheriff starts trying to crack down on the stunts they do. That’s when it all goes downhill.

“—allowed to say no to that, Jake,” he catches Dani saying one night. He rests against the wall in the hallway, trying not to get caught eaves dropping.

“I know that,” Jake answers, voice frustrated. “And I’m going to. I just… I don’t think they’ll agree with me.”

“And? You don’t have to be a part of the stunt group anymore if they’re gonna turn into a fucking gang.”

“It’s not—,” he cuts himself off with a frustrated groan. Barclay clutches the basket he’s holding a little tighter. “It’s not just Hollis, Dani. They’re all my friends. Do you really think Keith’s gonna be friendly to me if I break off from the group and ruin my fucking relationship? He’s so loyal to them, there’s no way.”

“His loss then. You can’t join a gang, Jake. You don’t even want to! What kind of name is that, anyway, the Hornets. They’re going to get in trouble and do illegal stuff and also still stunt but make it more illegal.”

“But I love them,” he says weakly. Barclay hears a smack and then an “Ow!”

“Partners aren’t everything, okay? Don’t throw your life away for some stupid relationship. You love them, but do you love them enough to commit vandalism?”

“Maybe some light vandalism,” he says moodily, and he hears another smack and another, more muffled “ow.”

“That’s all my friends in the whole world that exist outside the Lodge, okay? I’m allowed to feel bad about it.”

“Yeah but don’t be dumb about it. I am giving you full permission to come cry in my room about it after everything breaks bad, but you actually have to say that no, you’re not joining Hollis’s bug gang because you disagree with it on a fundamental level and that it’ll mess up your relationship even worse. You have to do that Jake, or I’m not gonna listen to you talk about this anymore.”

“Fine,” he whines. “This sucks. This sucks to bad. I love them and they’re gonna hate me after this and we’re never gonna talk and one day years from now they’ll still resent me and it’ll _suck_.”

“Stop being a baby and break up with your partner before they rope you into arson or something.”

Jake disappears the next day around noon and no one sees him for the rest of the day. Barclay checks his room the next morning and finds him face down on the bedspread, clothes from yesterday still on.

“My life is over,” he moans.

“I doubt it,” Barclay says, and Jake’s head snaps up.

“Thought you were Dani,” he says after a moment. He flops back onto the bed after that. “My life’s still over.”

“How?”

“Door closed talk,” he says without moving, and Barclay shuts the door, sitting down on the edge of the bed.

“How’s your life over?”

“I broke up with Hollis, ruined all my friendships, and ostracized myself from all of the ski hills.”

That last one is a surprise, but if all his ex friends were the ones who snow boarded, well… it makes sense.

“Why?” he asks, because Jake never actually talked to him about the situation, he knows what he knows from listening in on his and Dani’s conversation.

“They wanna get back at the police,” he says into his pillow. “And sure, me too, but they wanna turn the stunt club into a gang called the Hornets and maybe do some vandalism and illegal stunts and that stuff and I just… I can’t do that Barclay. I can’t be a part of that. And I know they’re not gonna give up on this, and I’m not giving up on _not_ doing that, so we had to break up. And almost everyone wanted to be a part of it, so they’re all against me now, and Hollis is like, gonna hate me forever and ever and I’ll never find love again and my whole life is over.”

“That’s a little fatalistic,” Barclay says.

“It’s the truth. I’m ruined forever. Jake Coolice is over, finished.”

“Alright, come on,” Barclay says, shoving at him as he stands. Jake whines in response.

“I mourning the death of my social and love lives, Barclay. You gotta let me mope.”

“I’m not gonna let you mope. You can mope later. Right now you are going to get you snow stuff and I, sadly, am also going to get my snow stuff, and you’re gonna teach me how to board.”

Jake sits up at that, staring at him. “What?”

“You heard me, you’re gonna teach me how to board,” Barclay says, immediately regretting this spur of the moment decision.

Jake gapes at him, eyes red and puffy, face blotchy. “You said you’d never learn how to board.”

“And here I am. One time offer, it’ll never happen again. Yes or no?”

“I… I’ve been ostracized from the hills.”

“So we go somewhere else. You know how many ski hills there are in the area outside of Kepler? Either you get your stuff and we go boarding now, or you never get to see my fall on my ass doing something I have no clue how to do.”

“Okay,” he says, getting up slowly. “Give me a few minutes to get ready.”

The ride to the next nearest ski place is quiet but Jake’s bouncing with anticipation. Barclay, predictably, does not do well with snowboarding. He has no clue where to put his feet or the rest of his body and stays true to his word by falling on his ass way more times than he planned on. Jake actually smiles, doing his best to help him stay upright, and eventually Barclay makes it down the hill with minimal wobbling and he doesn’t fall. They’ve been at it for hours by that point.

“Yeah!” Jake says, shoving his goggles up. “You got it!”

“I don’t think I can do that again,” Barclay says, collapsing into the snow. His body was so tense holding himself up.

“Aw but you did great! You didn’t even fall once that time!”

“I am old and my body hates me,” Barclay says, closing his eyes. “The hill will murder me if I go again.”

“Okay, geez,” Jake says, affronted. “Don’t die on me.”

“The plans are in the exact opposite.”

They stay there for a while longer, getting hot chocolate and a hot lunch to go with it, warming up after all the snow. They have to go back eventually though, and Jake seems like he’s dreading it even more than this morning.

“They’re not everything,” Barclay says halfway back to Kepler. “Your friends. Hollis. They’re not everything. I know it sucks a lot, and I’m sorry, but you can make it through.”

“They were though,” Jake says quietly, resting his head on the glass and staring out at the scenery. “You don’t get it.”

“Try me.”

Jake doesn’t speak for a long while and Barclay doesn’t push him to. He’s done enough today, getting out of the house. He doesn’t have to bare the rest of his soul.

“My parents tried really hard to make good with the court,” he says out of nowhere. Barclay jumps a bit. This is the first he’s mentioned anything about his life before the Gate to Barclay. “They weren’t on it, but they were up there, and they wanted as much cushioning as they could get.”

Jake still isn’t looking at him, staring straight out his window, forehead bumping along with the road. “It was hard to make friends when your parents were the biggest kiss asses around. They’d do whatever it took to keep their position of close to the crystal and the people in charge of it.”

So he was right about his last name actually meaning something in the status game. He’d wondered, but it never felt right to ask.

“I just… I wanted to be friends with people, you know? It sucked. Everyone’s parents were pretty wary of mine, they’d stabbed a lot of people in the back and kind of ruined my childhood reputation. And when the time came around to show the rest of the world that people higher up were the same in the court’s eyes, well.”

Jake doesn’t finish the sentence, and it takes Barclay a second to connect making good with the court and Jake ending up here. His hands tighten on the steering wheel.

“Jake—”

“It’s fine. I mean, it’s obviously not, but at this point it’s fine. I’ve got a different home and that’s fine. But… other than Dani, they’re the first people I really got to be friends with. I got to fucking fall in love. It feels the same now, like sucking up to make good with the higher ups and losing everyone I care about all over again.”

His voice is incredibly level, and Barclay wonders how many times he’s gone over those facts in his head in the four years he’s been on earth.

“I’m sorry,” Jake says, voice tighter, more stressed. “Shit, I’m sorry.”

“Why are you sorry?”

“I know you wanted to ask,” he says, twisting his hands together. “I knew and I never told you and now you have to deal with all my _emotions._ Like, all my break up sadness and no more friends sadness and my tragic backstory from back home and that’s way too many things for you to have to handle.”

“Jake,” he says firmly. “That is not too much to handle. You’re my responsibility, alright? I care about you, and whenever you want to talk about something is fine with me. You could’ve never told me and I wouldn’t have asked before you were ready. You’re family, I love you, and I care about you, and you can talk to me about anything any time. It’s not too much. It’s never going to be too much, okay?”

“Okay,” he whispers out, still looking out the window. “Okay.”

Jake takes Dani up on her promise of being allowed to mope and cry about it in her room, and Dani doesn’t even tease him that much, which Barclay’s proud of.

A little less than a year later Aubrey shows up, and Mama recruits for the Pine Guard, and things go all the way out of wack again. Barclay’s getting used to three new people learning all about the secrets he’s kept for years, and Aubrey’s trying to fit in with the dynamic of the Lodge and her blatant crush on Dani is not being hidden well, and Dani

Well, Dani’s also doing a bad job of hiding her recipratory crush, but Aubrey’s too oblivious to see it.

“Barclay,” Dani says in the kitchen one morning, making breakfast. “You cannot tell Jake this because he’s going to gloat it in my face, but I think I like Aubrey.”

“Uh, yeah. It’s a little obvious.”

Her face lushes and she goes back to mixing pancake batter. “Not that obvious,” she mutters.”

“Jake probably hasn’t noticed and Aubrey definitely hasn’t. I won’t tell anyone, you know that. ‘cept for maybe Mama, but she absolutely will never tell anyone.”

“A cute girl was never supposed to come through and actually stay! I was gonna lord it over Jake for the rest of his life but no, she just had to show up.”

“Would you prefer her to leave?”

“…no,” she says, pouring our half the batter and adding blueberries to the first bowl. “She’s really cool.”

“Not again,” Barclay sighs, grabbing the second bowl and pouring pancakes onto the griddle. “Jake did this over Hollis too.”

Dani’s lips purse at the name and she keeps mixing. “It’s true this time though. She can do magic and she’s a _human_. What humans can do that? No humans! That’s cool, you have to admit.”

“It is cool, but it’s also dangerous. She doesn’t know how to control it yet.”

“So she learns! And she gets to learn here. And also help me garden. And maybe I can show her how to cook, and draw her a few times, and watch over Dr. Bonkers.”

“I dunno, Dani, I think Jake would appreciate the chance to act sappy about something. You know he’d gush all over this after making fun of you for the first ten minutes.”

“He is a surprising romantic,” she says, mulling it over. “Maybe, but not until the hunt is done. I want to make sure she actually stays.”

“Obviously,” he says, like it’s the smartest thing in the world she’s just said.

The hunt goes less than stellar, and Aubrey ends up in the hospital. As he leaves to go visit her, Mama hands him a letter for her.

“I’ve got a lead,” she says, adjusting her backpack, and his heart falls a little.

“You’re leaving?”

“Pretty sure I’m gonna find him this time. Some reliably sources have told me they’ve seen a remarkably human lookin’ dude out in the wilds.”

“That could be anyone,” he tries.

“But it could also be him,” she says predictably. “Don’t worry, I won’t be out long. Just wanna check it out. I’ll be back before you know it.”

He lets her go reluctantly and sets back off to the hospital. Aubrey’s awake and much better than she was, but still pretty rough. He takes her back to the Lodge after a few days, helps get her set back up, and then mulls everything over.

They have new people, people they can trust, and Barclay’s actually happy about it. Dani’s got someone she can crush on, Jake has a new friend finally, and even he’ll admit that she’s worming her way into his heart. Plus Duck and Ned. Duck’s a little less inflammatory than Ned, especially considering the Bigfoot video incident, but Ned’s still… okay. Kind of.

Until Agent Stern shows up, but that’s a whole can of worms he doesn’t want to touch. He feels almost bad for the guy. He’s come to the complete correct place to find exactly what he’s looking for, keeps trying to make friends with the guy who actually is bigfoot, and yet he keeps getting Agent Scullied by never actually seeing anything that confirms it.

It doesn’t help that no one likes him because he’s invading their home, and Barclay does his best to be nice to him while still keeping him at a distance.

The water monster comes and almost drowns Jake and Duck respectively, and Barclay sits up with Jake that first night after he almost dies until he’s too tired to stay up anymore and Barclay can heard him off to bed.

Then Mama comes back, also half dead, dragging Thacker into their bunker while he’s out cold, and Barclay has no idea what the fuck that means for the future, especially considering the FBI right upstairs. Mama drops his journals on the desk before collapsing in the main room and they have to haul her off to the hospital for yet another round of injured in the wilds.

They always ask her what happened and she always tells them very sagely that she was injured in the wilds, and every time they tell her to be more careful in the woods. It’s a game at this point. The nurses all know it too.

She breaks out of the hospital and Barclay allows himself to panic for a very brief moment before finding her back at the Lodge trying to deal with Thacker on her own with her busted up foot and rest of body and also trying not to use the crutches they gave her. It’s par the course and Barclay just tries to ignore it all and make this terrible situation he finds himself in better.

The next abomination comes much too fast, changing timelines so much that Indrid has to actually intervene and help out with a hunt so they finally figure out what’s going on before half the town dies. That same day Aubrey has what Barclay can only assume is the worst night ever, considering the shock blanket that stays wrapped around her shoulders the entire time. He’ll ask, but when the town isn’t about to die.

There’s a sinkhole and a monster turned friend and some almost terrible endings, but it works out okay in the end.

He doesn’t ask for a few weeks, until everything’s settled down and Agent Stern isn’t tearing up the town looking for conspiracies anymore.

Barclay brings her lunch and sits down at the table with her, eating his own sandwich. “How’re you doing?”

“’m good,” she gets out through a mouthful of bread and cheese. “How’re you?”

“I’m fine,” he says, thinking it through. There’s no one around to overhear them. “I meant mostly with the magic. I know you’ve been a little reluctant to use it recently.”

“Oh,” she says, setting her sandwich down. “You know, you could just be straight to the point with it and ask. I know that’s what you’re doing.”

“Are you okay from the other night then?”

“Mostly. Got, uh, got real fucked up about it at first.”

“I know. It was scary. I wasn’t there, but Duck said it was worse at the grocery store.”

“Yeah well Duck says a lot of things,” she says, taking a pointed bite of her sandwich. “Not all of them are true.’

“Can usually tell when he’s lying though.”

“I thought I killed one of my best friends, Barclay, how do you think I’m doing,” she says instead of beating around the bush anymore.

“Badly. Which is why I’m asking. I want to make sure you’re taking care of yourself correctly and not blaming yourself too badly.”

“What’s there to blame for? The only person who got hurt was Ned and he got right back up. Not like I dropped an entire sign on a local building, my magic going so fucking badly in a way it’s only done once before now, apparently.”

“Apparently?”

“Realized some stuff,” she says shortly. “It was not great stuff.”

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“I did with Mama already,” she says lamely, picking at a part of the table. “Why don’t you ask her?”

“Because I’m asking you.”

“You can tell no one about this,” she says, and she stares at him, eyes deadly serious. “I mean it.”

“I swear.” He wonders what could be so bad that—

“I’m pretty sure the night our house got robbed I set it on fire and accidentally killed my mom,” she says almost too quiet for him to hear, and holy shit.

“Holy shit,” he says without filter, and she laughs bitterly.

“Yeah, holy shit.”

“Aubrey that’s… I’m sorry.”

“It’s not my fault, blah blah, yadda yadda, I know. But it is. It is, because I used a power I didn’t even know I had, and I did it again at Leo’s the other night and almost killed three more people. Four counting that guy in the bathroom. My kill count’s one, I don’t need any more.”

Her eyes are glossy, but she doesn’t cry. He’s sure she’s used up a lot of crying energy on this recently. He thinks it over for a second before placing his hand out. She looks at it before putting her hand in his. He squeezes firmly.

“I’m sorry, Aubrey. That’s a horrible situation you got put in, and it’s awful that you’re blaming yourself for it, and it’s really terrible that you think it almost happened again. I promise you I’m not blaming you, and no one else here will. I care about you Aubrey. I’m glad you made it to the Lodge and I’m glad you decided to stay.”

“Thanks,” she says wetly, and takes another bite of her sandwich. “Means a lot.”

“Anytime,” he says, squeezing her hand again. She doesn’t pull hers back.

And things are… things aren’t normal, but they’re okay for a while. They’re settling, the new hunt doesn’t show up until it’s supposed to, and people are making amends, and things are going very very good.

The next hunt is certainly a hunt, he thinks, but not coming from them.

Dani’s acting weird, and there’s those dead Hornets, and Jake’s real torn up about it, and Aubrey’s trying to needle it out of Dani, and they all go searching for clues and Ned takes the screen after stealing Mama’s laptop and Shade Tree, and then it all really goes sideways.

Dani drops out of the sarcophagus and Ned thinks faster than him, running for her when she starts charging and the shot rings out loud in his ears.

Ned collapses on top of her and Barclay hauls her bodily upwards and off of him while Mama runs up to Ned to try and stop the bleeding he knows has to be happening. Dani’s kicking and scratching at him, making these terrible animalistic growls and screeches, and he dunks her feet first into the deepest part of the springs and yanks her coat off her body. She settles down after that, and he thinks they’re in the clear for the night.

And then the fucking mountain raises in the air, tinged blue in the night, and he closes his eyes, trying not to think about it. It slams down onto the ground, onto part of what he knows it town, and he returns his attention to Dani.

Oh god they’re going to have to get everyone out.

Jake finds him first, coming out of the woods in a rush, seeing Dani submerged and Barclay holding her up from the edge. He sobs in relief as he collapses against Barclay’s side.

“We’ll figure it out,” Barclay says, and it sounds hollow in his ears. He’s lying through his teeth and he hopes Jake doesn’t notice.

Duck and Aubrey come up next, Duck letting Aubrey set most of her weight on him as they limp through the trees. Aubrey’s leg is bleeding and Duck takes her inside to try and fix it as best he can.

He gets a solemn shake of his head from Duck with his questioning head tilt, and his stomach drops.

Ned didn’t make it.

“Mmn,” comes from below him, and Jake perks up from his semi hysterical crying, peeking down at Dani as she comes awake. Barclay is praying to whatever is out there that she comes back okay.

“Wh… Barclay? Jake?”

“Yeah,” he says, relief flooding though him. Jake reaches out and grabs her hand, squeezing probably way too tight. “We’re right here.”

“Why am I… in the spring? I’ve got clothes on, what…?”

“We can talk about it later,” he tells her. “Just rest now.”

“I feel bad,” she says quietly before closing her eyes again. Jake stops crying completely and composes himself, wiping at his face and pulling his goggles over his eyes to cover up the redness. Barclay pulls her to a shallower part of the spring where she can sit without fear of drowning. Aubrey comes limping out, held up by Duck.

“Is she—?”

“She’s okay,” Barclay tells her. “Just woke up for a second there. I think she’ll be just fine.”

The panic in his mind wonders how long she was there with that thing, how many interactions she had with him that he brushed off as just strange behavior, how long one of his kids had been taken from his home.

“Thank god for that,” Duck says, sitting them both down next to the two of them. “What’s the plan?”

“We have to get everyone out,” Barclay says. “If you think this isn’t the proof Stern needed to send a swarm of his little agent friends up here, I don’t know what. We need to get everyone out of the Lodge and into some hide outs as fast as possible.”

“I got it,” Duck says. “I know some people that owe me a lot of favors, and I think it’s time to cash in.”

They get everyone moved out with their essentials in record time, into neighboring apartments and Leo’s apartment and the nice little old lady down the hall form Duck. He stays with Dani that night, making sure she comes through okay, and when she wakes up, remembering nothing but darkness and then unreasonable bright light, he holds her through her sobs as he explains what happened.

It’s two months of feeling displaced and scared and unsure and he has no clue what to do with himself. He can’t do anything. He can’t do _anything_. He’s stuck here with no way of helping, watching his home get torn apart by the government while his best and longest friend has been arrested on suspicion of paranormal activity, and he knows they haven’t given her proper paperwork or a lawyer or any correct treatment.

Then the end of the world comes up, and he can finally do something again, he can help, he can protect his people, his family, his home.

They traipse through the woods, running from FBI agents and cameras, and he lays eyes on Amnesty Lodge.

The Lodge has been his home for over thirty year. Staring at it, lifeless, worn down, washed out by floodlights, he feels fiercely protective.

He’s either going to save the most permanent home he’s ever had, or he’s going to damn well die trying. There is no in between. He didn’t mean to stay but he did and it’s his home.

Barclay Bigfoot Griffin spares the Lodge one last look and goes off to save the world.

**Author's Note:**

> hi oh no i fell in love with barclay  
i just, i feel like he protects and cares about everyone at the lodge so much, he deserves better. i hope he doesn't die. if griffin kills barclay i'll riot  
i hope you liked this one! i was hoping for right around 8k and then it ended up 11k but that's fine, the more the merrier. please comment if you enjoyed


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